Welcome to JetNation.com

Welcome to JetNation.com, your home for New York Jets talk. We are an independent site, which means we aren't affiliated with the NY Jets or SNY. The opinions here are never censored. We want you to join in on the conversation, but don't worry this is a simple and FREE process. Be apart of JetNation.com by signing in or creating an account. When you create an account, you can also opt to use your existing Facebook or Twitter login.

In a move that ought to surprise no one, the Jetsintend to use the fifth-year option on defensive end Muhammad Wilkerson's contract sometime before the May 2 deadline, according to a report in the New York Daily News.

Wilkerson, drafted No. 30 overall in 2011, is the first Jets player subject to the rookie-wage scale that took effect when a new collective bargaining agreement was signed that year. The CBA mandates that all draft picks be given four-year contracts, but first-round picks like Wilkerson must get four-year deals with a team option for a fifth.

The Daily News report said the Jets and Wilkerson have had talks about a long-term extension. Citing a team source, the Daily Newssaid the Jets have "yet to convey concrete plans to Wilkerson" but that "it has been made abundantly clear that the Jets will prioritize free agency and the draft over the next two months."

There's little reason for the Jets to be in any kind of rush to give Wilkerson an extension.

Why? Because that fifth-year option takes away all leverage from any players drafted in the first round who perform at a high level, as Wilkerson has during his first three seasons with the Jets. Pro Football Focus graded Wilkerson as the eighth-best 3-4 defensive end in the NFL in 2013.

Wilkerson's initial four-year deal with $5.56 million in guarantees expires after the coming season. According to the CBA, exercising the option means the Jets could keep Wilkerson in 2015 at a price equal to the average salary of the third- through 25th-highest-paid players at his position.

The National Football Post, using data from spotrac.com, estimated the value of the fifth-year option for defensive ends drafted in the 2011 first round to be $5.25 to $6 million—far below what Wilkerson could command on the open market.

Wilkerson can't do anything about this, either—and he'd be punished severely if he were to try. According to the CBA, if Wilkerson were to hold out, he'd be subject to a fine of $30,000 for every day of training camp absences, plus the equivalent of one week's regular-season pay for every preseason game missed.

The fifth-year option must be exercised before May 3. The CBA mandates that the option-year money becomes guaranteed as soon as the option is triggered. That means the Jets will likely wait right up until that deadline.

The New York Jets have exercised the 5th year option on Muhammad Wilkerson, which means that he is locked up through 2015. This season he is scheduled to make a base salary of $1,200,500 and the price in 2015 will go to $6,969,000 (according to OvertheCap.com). The Jets will work out a long term extension with Wilkerson eventually. But Muhammad told a fan this week to be patient.

We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the harsh winds blow.
The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands,
To fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming

I wouldn't be surprised to see an extension handed out, but it's not going to be until after free agency and the draft are officially over, there's too much else to worry about. What's crazy is that Big Mo won't be 25 until October, this is one of those deals that you can actually envision the player earning every year of the contract.

You do realize that the whole reason that this was agreed to is because none of the folks who were weighing in on it gave a crap? The current NFL players wanted the rookies to be getting excessively less money, because that left more money on the table for them, the veterans. Under the old CBA the top picks of the draft were routinely amongst the highest paid players in the league, which absolutely no one but the agents felt was anything but completely idiotic. Meanwhile, nobody already in the league was going to get impacted by this new agreement, so if there was any place they were willing to make concessions, it was the rookie wage scale.

Can we stop having to deal with this Revis felating in every single contract-related thread? After all, in this particular instance, it could not possibly be less applicable. There is literally no connection at all between his past situations and the current rookie contract structure.

Revis came into the league long before any of this came into effect, back when rookies were widely regarded to be massively overpaid. Revis then held out before ever spending a day in the league and ultimately got paid even more than the laughable amount of overpayment that completely unproven rookies were already being given. He then refuses to honor that very same contract he held out for, proceeds to fake injuries, and then shows up out completely fat and of shape, which directly leads to him getting hurt. All of that right there pretty much flushes every shred of argument can be made in favor of how he acted, even if you excuse the holdouts themselves.

The fact that Wilk deserves to be paid more money next year has absolutely no connection to any of this, and is really just a laughably bad excuse to continue to slobber all over some overrated former player who spent his career treating this team like complete crap, most recently trying to use them as a negotiating tool while signing with their top rival. Screw him.

We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the harsh winds blow.
The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands,
To fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming

We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the harsh winds blow.
The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands,
To fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming

Really? You mean to tell me that every player isn't a sanctimonious a$$hole when it comes to their contract? That's crazy talk man. If possible we should try and build a roster of guys like that, but it's not so we can't.

0

(Chandler)'s a nice piece as long as he's the 7th most important player on your roster....I think they're going to be disappointed when they see he's just a pumped-up Drew Gooden.